The One the Roots Called
699 Words
The jungle was alive with music—birds crooned secrets, vines danced in the wind, and somewhere deep beneath the roots, the earth pulsed like a second heartbeat.
Kailo Zhen stood barefoot in the soft soil of his village’s center, eyes closed, breathing in the pulse of the land.
Around him, his people moved quietly. Reverent. Distant.
A child tugged at her mother’s sleeve.
“Is he really the jungle?” she whispered.
Her mother hushed her. “Don’t speak so loud. He can hear everything.”
They weren’t wrong.
Kailo could hear the sap in the trees, the crawl of insects beneath bark, the heartbeat of flowers preparing to bloom. The Verdant Veil had whispered to him since birth. But lately, it called his name with urgency.
His footsteps made no sound as he returned to the elder circle.
The old men and women sat beneath the shrine tree, carved long ago with symbols of peace and unity. Symbols they now feared he’d undo.
“Do you ever sleep?” Elder Rohn grunted as Kailo passed.
“I rest,” Kailo replied softly.
“You never rest. You wander, barefoot, talking to leaves. Do you even remember what it means to be one of us?”
Kailo paused, turning his head slightly.
“I am us,” he said. “Whether you like the shape of me or not.”
Elder Nahma, always sour, leaned in from the shadows. “Or maybe you're just something the forest spat out to test our patience.”
“I’m the forest’s gift,” he answered flatly. “Or maybe its curse.”
No one laughed.
He kept walking.
In the village, the trees bowed inward as he passed. His people did too—out of habit, out of fear, or out of awe, he couldn’t tell anymore.
A young woman approached him, carrying baskets of herbs. “Kailo,” she said gently. “You’ve been quiet.”
“I listen more than I speak,” he replied.
“Will you stay for the naming ceremony tonight?”
He gave her a small smile. “Would you want me there?”
She looked down. “I… I don’t know.”
The silence said more than her words.
He left the village moments later, vines parting like curtains as he walked into the green heart of the world. The jungle welcomed him with whispers and swaying branches. At the edge of the Veil, where the foliage grew thick and woven like a wall, he waited.
The Rootspire had spoken to him in a dream—soft but unmistakable:
“She comes through the crystal and blood. Let her in, child of green.”
He didn’t know her name. Didn’t know her face.
But he would know her when she came.
Hours passed. The jungle remained still.
Then—a disturbance.
Vines rustled. A figure broke through the foliage, stumbling into the Verdant Veil with wide eyes, her skin glowing with sweat and travel-dust, her crystal-woven cuffs glittering faintly.
Zaphira.
She gasped, spinning in place. “Where… where even am I?”
Kailo stepped forward from the vines, shadows falling off his shoulders like silk.
“You’ve entered the Veil,” he said calmly.
Zaphira spun and, without thinking, punched him square in the face.
He didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Just blinked slowly as she shook out her hand.
“Oh,” she said. “That… felt like hitting a tree.”
“Technically, I am the tree,” he replied, rubbing his cheek. “At least, part of it.”
She squinted. “You’re real?”
“Mostly.”
Zaphira took a breath. “You knew I was coming?”
“The roots told me.”
She laughed—short and bitter. “Right. Of course they did. This day’s been normal as hell.”
He smiled softly, motioning toward a clearing. “Come. You need rest. And the jungle needs to know you.”
She eyed him carefully, but followed. “You always this creepy?”
“Only on the days the forest sings in my bones.”
She didn’t know what that meant, but something in her heart knew it mattered.
- Writer
